mesbooks Chapter 143 Suicide note
Chapter 143 Suicide note
The candlelight burst into a flame inside the bronze lamp, and the vermilion brush at Chu Lan's fingertips snapped in response.
From this day forward, she is no longer Princess Changning; she is Chu Lan, and also the Empress of the Xia Dynasty.
As she gazed at the sealed letter on her desk, she suddenly felt as if the carved dragon and phoenix dome of the Imperial Study was slowly collapsing, and the coiled dragons on the golden nanmu beams seemed to come alive, baring their fangs and claws as if to devour her.
"Before his death, the late emperor instructed that this item must be opened by Your Majesty personally."
As the old eunuch retreated with a hunched back, the glass beaded curtain still rustled.
Chu Lan stared at the familiar handwriting on the envelope—it was the Xia Emperor's unique slender gold script, with the last stroke always carrying the force of a knife and axe, just as decisive as when he swung his sword to sever his brother's head.
The letter was already a bit brittle, so she had to unfold it carefully.
The moment the letter was unfolded, the lingering scent of ambergris mixed with the stench of blood wafted over.
Chu Lan's fingernails dug deeply into her palms, and the ink characters on the silk gleamed with an eerie blue light under the candlelight:
"Ning'er, by the time you read this letter, my remains will be in the imperial mausoleum. There are some things your father has always wanted to tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn't be able to accept them, so I hesitated. Now, your father has decided to tell you the truth, and I hope you can understand your father's difficulties."
"Your mother was already pregnant when she married into the Kang Prince's household. This child is you. The person your mother loved most was always your father, the Emperor. She and your father were childhood sweethearts and should have become a perfect couple. However, in order to consolidate his imperial power, the late Emperor bestowed your mother upon the Kang Prince. Although your mother was unwilling, she could only agree with tears in her eyes for the sake of the family's honor."
Chu Lan's hands began to tremble, and she felt dizzy.
She couldn't believe that her mother had such a hidden past.
"After your mother married into the Kang Prince's mansion, she never forgot your father. She often called out his name in her dreams, but could only shed tears alone when she woke up. Your father also always cared about her, but for her happiness, he could only bury this feeling deep in his heart."
The contents of the letter struck her like a thunderbolt; she could hardly believe her eyes.
She mustered her courage and continued reading, only to find that the letter continued:
"Before you were born, your mother told me that she would pour all her love into you. She hoped you would live a happy life, far away from the strife of the court. However, fate played a cruel trick on her, and your mother died in childbirth... I clearly remember that first meeting at the Imperial Garden on the Shangsi Festival that year; the peony in your mother's hair, glistening with morning dew, was more vibrant than the bloodstains I later saw at the border..."
Chu Lan's tears finally welled up, and she felt an unprecedented grief.
She continued reading, and saw in the letter: "Ning'er, you are not Prince Kang's biological daughter. On your hundred-day celebration, I held you in my arms, and you clutched my jade thumb ring tightly. Prince Kang smiled and said that this child was kindred spirits to me, little did he know that my blood flowed in your veins... Later, after learning about your true parentage, Prince Kang still treated you as his own daughter. Your father saw all his kindness towards you. Your father knows that you have always hated your father, but your father hopes that you can understand that everything your father has done is for you."
Chu Lan read it several times, each word like a heavy hammer striking her heart.
Her heart was pounding faster and faster, and she felt an unprecedented tension and fear.
The jade paperweight on the desk suddenly fell to the ground and shattered into seven pieces.
Chu Lan staggered and steadied himself against the gilded incense burner, the calming incense ash falling softly onto his embroidered phoenix shoes.
The letter paper, like a blood-stained butterfly, drifted onto the "Landscape of the People and the State" bestowed by the late emperor, the ink stains blending with the vast river in the scroll.
Her heart was filled with contradictions and pain.
She couldn't accept this cruel truth, yet she couldn't deny the contents of the letter.
She felt a deep sense of powerlessness, as if the whole world was collapsing.
She recalled her past hatred for Emperor Xia and her determination to take revenge on him.
However, she now realizes that the Xia Emperor is actually her biological father.
She couldn't possibly dig up her own father's grave, could she?!
She felt a deep sense of helplessness and sorrow, and could only turn all her pain into tears, letting them flow freely.
At that moment, she saw the Dukang wine on the table.
She hesitated for a moment...
As the clay seal of the aged Du Kang was pried open with a dagger, moonlight shone through the lattice window, casting the character "囚" (prisoner) onto the blue brick floor.
Ripples spread across the pool's surface, reflecting the starry sky, which suddenly shattered into silver flakes.
Chu Lan tilted his head back and gulped down the strong liquor. The amber liquid flowed down his neck and into his clothes, burning his heart with pain.
This was her first time drinking alcohol, yet it felt as if she were swallowing all the bitterness she had never tasted in the first half of her life.
She felt a wave of dizziness, but the pain in her heart seemed to lessen somewhat.
The wine jar shattered in front of the mural "Xia Emperor's Conquests," and the flying pottery shards tore the silk depicting Xia Emperor's hand holding a sword.
Chu Lan curled up among the pile of wine jars, her fingertips tracing the cold ceramic walls. Suddenly, she remembered when she was twelve years old, she had mistakenly entered the wine cellar of the Kang Prince's mansion. The Kang Prince had raised a ruler to hit her palm, but in the end, he carried her on his shoulders and took down the swallow's nest from the beam.
She walked barefoot across the broken porcelain, her plain white undergarment soaked with wine, and the jade pendant with two fish at her waist clattered against the wine pot, ringing like a death knell.
She picked up the bronze Taotie Zun (a type of ancient Chinese vessel) on the table and examined it closely in the moonlight at the turquoise inlaid on the beast's head—a gift that King Kang had personally sought out in the Western Regions when she came of age.
"Father..." She suddenly slammed the wine vessel against a pillar, the beast-headed object bouncing three times on the white marble floor before rolling into the lotus pond. "You taught me benevolence, you taught me compassion for the people, but why didn't you teach me to see through this filthy world!"
She continued drinking until she was completely drunk.
As dawn broke, the old eunuch keeping vigil discovered Chu Lan kneeling before the ancestral tablets.
Her hair was disheveled, she was holding the memorial tablet of the late Empress Dowager in her arms, and seven or eight empty wine jugs were rolling at her feet.
"Don't you think this is retribution?" She pressed her forehead against the cold, golden nanmu wood altar, tears blurring the lacquered surface. "He killed all his brothers to pave the way for me, forced Prince Kang to commit suicide to eliminate future troubles, and even when you were seriously ill, he was plotting how to legitimize my rule..."
The ever-burning lamp on the altar suddenly exploded with a loud bang, and flames shot up three feet high.
In the flickering firelight, Chu Lan saw his own shadow cast on the "Royal Family Genealogy," with the ink characters "Chu Shi Changning" pressing directly above the name "Kang Wang Chu Jingru," like a bloodstained guillotine.
Chu Lan stood barefoot on the railing, his black dragon robe fluttering in the wind.
Looking down at the still-dormant imperial city, she suddenly understood why the Xia Emperor always liked to sit alone here—from here, even the Golden Palace looked as small as an anthill.
"Your Majesty!" The palace maid who rushed to look for the person screamed and collapsed to the ground.